Tea party at it again. I hope Democrat wins this seat. I would have voted for Richard Lugar (voted for him in the primary) and voted for him last time around. Extremists needs to go. http://newsandtribune.com/opinion/x1241988359/HOWEY-Deja-vu-in-Indiana-senate-race October 1, 2012 HOWEY: Deja vu in Indiana senate race By BRIAN HOWEY Indiana columnist NASHVILLE — With Colorado, Delaware and Nevada nagging reminders of how a Tea Party candidate can botch a Senate race — and a potential majority, which happened in 2010 — Indiana Republicans remain in danger of losing a Senate seat. GOP nominee Richard Mourdock trails Democrat Joe Donnelly 40 to 38 percent in the latest Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll. Libertarian nominee Andrew Horning is pulling 7 percent, perhaps bleeding away crucial support for the candidate who upset U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar in the May primary. With Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Pence leading John Gregg 47-34 percent and Mitt Romney up over President Obama 52-40 percent, Mourdock’s numbers represent a dramatic drop-off in support. Howey/DePauw pollster Fred Yang observes, “With Romney and Pence holding solid double digit leads yet Democrat Donnelly ahead narrowly, Hoosiers are once again showing the ability to ‘split’ their tickets along the lines of 2008 [narrowly voting for Barack Obama, giving Mitch Daniels a landslide victory, and maintaining a Democratic majority in the Statehouse].” Over the past two years, I’ve written a number of columns about this Senate race. From the beginning of Mourdock’s campaign, I was both fascinated and repelled by his core message: a strident opposition to bipartisanship and compromise. Few candidates had ever taken such an unvarnished, extreme view of our legislative process, which requires consensus between the parties, usually coming between two initial positions. By August, fallout from this core message finally dawned on Mourdock and his campaign. He backtracked, using Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman as a surrogate to assure us he will “work with both Republicans and Democrats.” But Mourdock’s actions since then cast further doubt on his sincerity. He is hiding from voters, instead using the millions of dollars of Super PACs who are buying his vote for the TV ads you see every day. Libertarian nominee Andrew Horning says the three candidates have been invited to more than a dozen candidate forums, but Mourdock is not participating. Other than several Republican events, Mourdock made just a handful of public appearances since Aug. 1, contrasted by Donnelly who is out on the campaign trail almost every day when Congress is not in session. Mourdock turned down an interview with the Republican-leaning Wall Street Journal this past week. The Associated Press called this message twist “Extreme Makeover: Mourdock edition.” The Mourdock campaign finally agreed to debate, just two weeks before the first one is scheduled. The story line is this: Mourdock’s national handlers are so wary of a “Todd Akin moment” that they are urging him to stay under wraps. More troubling for Mourdock is he is losing support in the Republican-rich doughnut counties around Indianapolis. He leads Donnelly there by only 36-32 percent while Pence is up 24 points and Romney by 18. While cross tabs show Mourdock’s favorables stood at 45.5 percent with Republicans, only 18.4 percent of independents — the voting block likely to determine this race — view him favorably while 32.4 percent were unfavorable. Pence’s numbers were 34/16 percent. Indiana Republicans took a historic gamble in May when they traded 36-year veteran Lugar for Treasurer Mourdock, who galvanized a Tea Party base and GOP dissatisfaction over Lugar judicial votes and earmark support to forge a historic upset. Lugar had a commanding 50-29 percent lead over Donnelly in the March HoweyDePauw poll. But in the critical 48 hours after his primary win, Mourdock conducted several national TV interviews in which he continued the rhetoric that made him a Tea Party hero, but has left some Lugar supporters and independents unenthused about his candidacy. Mourdock is getting 60 percent of the Lugar primary vote, though 10 percent say they may change their mind. In interviews on CNN and MSNBC, Mourdock espoused his strident opposition to comprise with Democrats — unless they came to the Republican position — and bipartisanship. On an MSNBC interview, a smirking Mourdock said he enjoyed nothing more than “inflicting my opinion on someone else.” It provided Donnelly, Indiana Democrats and supporting 527 Super PACs a cache of video that is now being used in TV ads against Mourdock. Mourdock is polling only 71 percent of the Republican vote while Donnelly is getting 78.3 percent of the Democratic vote. Donnelly is polling 15.3 percent of Lugar primary voters. This indicates that Mourdock is coming up short in consolidating his GOP base. His campaign angered many Lugarites when a fundraising letter sent out shortly after the primary talked of Lugar’s “betrayal” of conservative causes. Other Republicans may opt for Horning, or “scratch” on the race, as a number of GOP mayors have told me they are hearing in their cities. The Mourdock campaign is acting rattled, restricting his schedule and media availability while attempting to change his core message. They will shift to another ploy: nationalize the race and say a vote for Donnelly is a vote for Majority Leader Harry Reid. That might work, though polling in Senate races in Massachusetts, Ohio and Florida are showing a Democratic surge. All this data and actions by the candidate suggest a temperament issue. The questions voters should be asking is this: does this candidate want to be a legislator who gets things done? Or a partisan warrior in a system that is already gridlocked as the extreme wings drive the party agendas.
This is one of those races that really needs Mitt Romney to do well. Indiana did vote for Obama last time after all and while there's a 0 percent chance of that happening again, an Obama bump in Indiana could screw Mourdock out of this. That said, Mourdock is a god damn moron with some of the things he's said. Aside from saying he's against bipartisanship and social security and medicare are unconstitutional, he basically pissed on Lugar right after he beat him which was just stupid. He is easily the dumbest Senate nominee out there on the Republican ticket and he deserves to lose.
Not only that but Donnelly pretty much name drops Lugar in every ad he runs. Seems like every Donnelly ad is about how he voted the same way Lugar did on various pieces of legislation.
Lugar also came out and defended Obama on foreign policy stuff recently. I'd love to see him just come out and straight-up endorse Donnelly in this race, though it's unlikely.
